1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to novel polynucleotides encoding proteins useful as biotechnological tools and for production of substances, specifically identified in a coryneform bacterium Corynebacterium glutamicum ssp. lactofermentum and fragments thereof, polypeptides encoded by the polynucleotides and fragments thereof, polynucleotide arrays comprising the polynucleotides and fragments thereof.
2. Brief Description of the Related Art
In the field of biotechnology, there needs many tools, for example, DNA ligase, DNA polymerase, RNA polymerase, modification and restriction enzymes, and so on. In this field, variation of genes or enzymes is important for extension of applicable objects. Furthermore, modification and improvement of organisms are important for industrial production of useful substances, such as amino acids, nucleic acids, organic acids, sugars, and enzymes, (Faurie, R. and Thommel, J., Microbial Production of L-Amino Acids, Springer Verlag, 2002; Harris, T. J. R., Protein Production by Biotechnology (Elsevier Applied Biotechnology Series), Aspen Publishers, 1990). For the aforementioned purpose, genetic engineering is one of the useful methods and many genes have been known to be effective. Modification and restriction endonucleases, chaperone proteins, enzymes that caytalyze important reactions, and transporters of important substances are useful for improving production of substances in organisms.
For example, amino acids such as L-lysine, L-glutamic acid, L-threonine, L-leucine, L-isoleucine, L-valine, and L-phenylalanine are industrially produced by fermentation by using microorganisms that belong to the genus Corynebacterium, Brevibacterium, Bacillus, Escherichia, Streptomyces, Pseudomonas, Arthrobacter, Serratia, Penicillium, Candida, or the like. In order to improve the productivity of amino acids, strains of the aforementioned microorganisms that have been isolated from nature or artificial mutants thereof have been used. Various examples of modification of genes, such as amplification, deletion, and point mutation by using recombinant DNA techniques to increase the L-amino acid-producing ability have been disclosed (Faurie, R. and Thommel, J., Microbial Production of L-Amino Acids, Springer Verlag, 2002).